No poem intrudes -- but the ponies breakfasting
and geese seem unconcerned -- discovering
the sopped cardboard -- and -- since suspense
suits well enough -- approaching
with just such rhythm to be certain -- until
the details -- roughly cut --
the coming green / the silos rusting how many
vented seasons -- agree
there is no escaping lack / tuitions -- and --
hearing the next train moan -- slipping
out of Sebring at ten past -- how the land leads
overland -- while the last daughter
wakes to schoolbooks -- from dreams of
Stock Queen Coronations -- with
her court / escorts -- and convertibles ahead
to take them anyplace they're dreaming.
Day after day the choices ask despair or ask novenas --
and day after day he thinks -- the executioners
awake -- roll over in time with straw essentials
to be counted -- seeding their sad
contaminants -- while the young deer -- noshing
at the feeder -- shows his indifference
to garden plots -- to knowledge / ignorance --
no longer what they promised -- and
to the poetry of course -- unhurried through
the lengths of its expression / through
phlox clusters ( he thinks ) -- while these hawks
this afternoon -- looping above
the flickering storm-tower -- grateful among
plain details -- seem to sense their place
in concentration -- because it's their story now --
the snap of a bike-chain say -- or the limb
snapped tightly on the smoking chain and blade --
or this bowed lilt now -- precluding
explanation -- since it's a time to dance / to skip
the lectures about timing -- a deciding
time -- when the Conrail hauls east -- ends here
in remembering -- enters the larger
storm / the equation or exercise -- that will
exhaust itself and leave this sunset after all --
once the lightning's stopped / and the hail's
done its business -- bringing him
out of doors again -- and into the land around --
to stare down spectacle -- to ride
with these birds the blasts straight up -- through
redundancy or chaos -- sharing
the joy become of it -- that Friday could be
so good -- and twenty-one years so good --
this feel of Ohio everywhere -- absorbing
interest -- so good he tells himself -- as any
said thing is -- seeing this late light -- playing
on her wine vases / rock displays -- his
daughter's triumphing -- begun ( he would say )
when love first struck him
as down payment -- as entertainment once --
with points of its own to make -- and
convertibles -- turning on a time -- and explorations
certainly -- with lovesongs ahead -- and
grosbeaks / orioles -- home again from wintering --
hummingbirds ahead -- scouting the feeder
hung for days in anticipation. Already he's said
too much. There's blow-down
to clear / stack / cut down to chiminea lengths
two snow-paled selves will share
as twilights lengthen over deck chairs -- reprising
tunes and tongues / well-sought
and seasonal flirts -- adventuring in tenses --
with one more storm behind --
one more parade -- and one more child schooling.
How would you react if asked --
explain as scuff-marks or successes -- the poetry --
if asked -- and its insistent lavishing --
but no less actual -- if asked -- than these
ends of spring / these sounds of the day
spelled out -- than these rooms two enter --
having rehearsed to entertain
then put together -- assuming amours -- beheld
in this grainy chiaroscuro -- twenty-some
years beheld -- repeating in color-whirls / in
another night's replenished chiminea --
as if they had only now looked out -- looked
into storm / storm's aftermath -- and found
this months-old deer emboldened -- hungry
enough to camp some fifteen feet
beyond their backdoor -- but bounding
as two step out -- certain ( they think )
how large a months-old target is -- how large
a place a deer might occupy as sentiment --
how terrible a click might seem
until he turns deep foliage.
JUST ABOUT ENOUGH
The freshly-paved Used Lot -- announcing cruises
chrome / chamoised panels
and concessions -- plays to the common-sense
and ways we've been transported--
through so many worlds toward / to so many worlds
still to be and to imagine -- where
something like love evolves and yields instruments.
I'm walking that porch-rail still -- painting
that third-story overhang -- overseen by the twins' mother --
fixed I suppose at that same screen-door
for forever -- and I suppose amused -- if fearful
to find a kid so used by his employer --
a grandfather no less / already camping on a bar-stool --
until the charmed scene snaps
/ the paint-brush slips the death-drop length of light
straight down to drive-pebbles -- plunging
the way kids could -- with one mis-step / miscalculation --
until the kid himself erupts --
with just about enough -- a woman turns and shuts
and warms mid-morning coffee -- counts
on her own sons' jobs / careers -- on colleges
I can only guess in half a century --
and amused I guess -- or scandalized -- seeing me
flash from arm-borne innocence
to ornery. So what will she say for poems -- or think
of Ohio now -- of worlds her sons
or rocket rangers must inhabit -- for the cigarmakers
or stool-warmers -- a child maybe
and grandfather or landlord -- climbing Danzer's
high-noon stools for centuries -- think
of this cruise-in now -- or make of dreams / of clouds
/ of light the dreams depend on -- say
for the voice of God / the voice of God's own prophet
redirected -- abandoned to rails or eaves
or to tin toys or to porchboards -- slipping the ways
Time did -- through brush-inflected daylight --
as even this mother's surmise / these chips of glass
recalled -- among the drivestones
and the summers -- these flying figures brightening --
as house creatures haunt -- and -- saints
be praised! -- Rita and Jude be praised! -- as
springtimes and summers haunt -- and faces
a mother can never quite stop counting / painting
a mother trusts has not quite ended yet.
